‘Saturday Night Live’: Bruce Willis, the expendable

So, wait, why is Bruce Willis hosting Saturday Night Live this week? He doesn’t have a movie coming out until sometime next year, he hasn’t been involved in any sort of media scandal and he’s not a member of the 5-timers Club, so what’s the deal? I have nothing against Bruce Willis, he seems like a sardonic enough kind of guy, willing to be self-deprecating and in on the joke. But he himself admitted in his monologue (which was terrible and was essentially the harmonica equivalent of Katie Holmes’ tap dancing that Tina Fey made fun of a couple of weeks ago) that he has only hosted once before, way back in 1989. Sketches in that episode include “Wayne’s World,” a thirtysomething parody, a “Sprockets” bit and a spoof of Donahue. That’s how far back we are talking, people. So why now?

I can only guess that this is also what the writers were asking themselves when they came up with the sketches for this episode. Lacking anything relevant related to Willis to work with, the writers wrote a series of bits that played off a 15-year-old Bruce Willis role, some not very well-developed impersonations and the last, desperate ploy of any writers’ room: recurring characters.

It was a mediocre effort at best. The writers clearly didn’t Try Hard. (BOOM. THAT’S HOW YOU WRITE COMEDY.)

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We start with a promising cold open: the new Sandra Bullock film, Gravity, meets the NASA furlough. Which, ha!

The “24 Hour Energy for Dating Actresses “commercial parody of the evening is pretty great? I think we can all agree even if we have no experience dating or being friends with an actress (or a comedian) that this commercial is pretty great.

And here’s where I feel like the wheels start coming off. The “Black Ops” sketch was a good idea: It’s very meta to hear an actor who has built his career on being an action hero deconstruct action hero clichés and reveal how ridiculous they would be in an actual combat scenario. But at some point there was just so much talking and my eyes glazed over and I couldn’t summon the same interest in Willis’ storytelling that his fellow soldiers did.

The “Barbershop” sketch is another example of over-writing. While I think it was more successful than the “Black Ops” bit, it used an awful lot of talking to make a pretty simple and well-worn joke: black people and white people sure are different! Ha ha ha.

Here’s where you and I are probably going to most disagree. I hated the “Boy Dance Party” digital short. “Isn’t it funny when straight guys do something that straight women don’t think twice about doing! Look at them dancing together! Next thing you know, they’ll be shoe shopping and cooking! And gay!” But I’m guessing most of you liked it and I’m not in the mood to argue, so.

There was a “Lady Gaga Show” sketch which SNL couldn’t post online for music copyright issues (I assume). But, honestly, you’re not missing anything if you didn’t see it last night. For starters, a Lady Gaga talk show is the most obvious idea in the world. Lady Gaga is a living caricature to begin with and offers plenty of comedic potential. And here’s where the sketch goes wrong: they didn’t go nearly weird enough. If anything, Lady Gaga was understated. And the celebrity impersonations — Bruce Willis as Michael Kors, and Kate McKinnon as Penelope Cruz — were unremarkable, if not downright bad and lazy. This sketch could go into a Saturday Night Live museum as an example of the show at its most mediocre.

The highlight of “Weekend Update?” Seth Meyers and Cecily Strong’s rapid fire jokes about Kris and Bruce Jenner’s divorce. This is why it’s always better to have a team at the Weekend Update desk instead of just a solo anchor:

Oh, hey, it’s that irritating Bobby Moynihan space character and his cat. So glad they chose to make him a recurring bit.

But wait! A sketch I’m not going to complain about! The “Centauri Vodka” sketch was short and clever, high-concept, yet very physical and there is zero possibility it will be turned into a recurring bit. Perfect!

Because here’s the thing: Saturday Night Live has a tendency to turn characters who are initially funny because they are so irritating into recurring characters whose irritatingness just becomes flat-out irritating. For example: Eddie.

The episode actually ended with a rerun of the “E Meth” commercial from a couple of weeks ago, which I am not going to repost here because that would just be lazy, KINDA LIKE RERUNNING A SKETCH THAT ONLY AIRED TWO WEEKS AGO.

So instead, we’ll conclude with the penultimate bit: a pre-taped sketch about a fraternity that doesn’t seem to understand that beer pong is not about the pong, but about the beer. Compared to the rest of the episode, it’s not terrible, but I’m not sure why they needed to tape it?

What do you think? Am I being too harsh on this episode? I might be being too harsh on this episode. It is entirely possible I am just feeling cranky and taking it out on this episode.

@adaman – You must be a troll, but in case anyone’s wondering what JSC employees & the contractors are doing, FURLOUGH means UNPAID, so they are not on *paid* vacation. My husband is one of the lucky ones – they found him some ‘outside’ work to do @ his contractor, but it will run out in a week or two. Many of his friends aren’t so lucky, and they have bills to pay & kids to feed. Unless they changed the rules recently, JSC employees aren’t allowed to take vacation during a furlough. There was also a layoff at my husband’s employer on October 1st, so some of his co-workers lost their jobs *permanently*. And if you’re so concerned about the expense of NASA, just remember that the entire budget for all the centers combined, all NASA facilities, salaries, etc., is only half of one cent of every government dollar per year. Yep, a hideously expensive program – so unproductive compared to so many other government entities…

No one at JSC is getting paid right now, civil servants or contractors. The contractors never will get paid for the furlough time. The civil servants might. Good luck telling your landlord or mortgage company that the check “might” be in the mail sometime. Last I checked grocery stores don’t take “might” for payment either.

@adaman
You must be thinking of the GS-13-SES’s who probably have money saved, NOT the GS7-GS8′s that are single parents who live paycheck to paycheck. Kind of hard to take trips out of town when you have no money and no money coming in.

Oh yeah, and it is NOT a done deal they will get paid. If it is up to John Cornyn, Harry Reid or any of the other nit wits in the Senate we won’t.

Like @bkbirge said good luck telling your mortgage company the check MIGHT be in the mail someday.